


Crash

by Elsey



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-01 22:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11496453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsey/pseuds/Elsey
Summary: An accident leaves Dean Winchester alone in a hospital room. Or so he thought.





	Crash

It’s the situation where there’s a song stuck in your head. You try and you try and you can’t get it out. You know you don’t have time for this song to be there, to consume your thoughts and to be the at the front of your mind at all times. You have work to do, a life to live, and this fucking song is nowhere near important enough to be the only thing you have on your mind, day and night, in and out.

Sometimes Dean wakes up screaming.

Sometimes he doesn’t.

But regardless of how he wakes up, he’s covered in sweat, usually shaking. A hand always goes to his face. His scarred, ruined face. And he feels where the freckles used to be, where that one part of his nose that he didn’t even realize he liked so much until it was gone once was.

And after he’s wiped off the sweat and calmed the tremors, the broken record of Castiel plays in his head.

Castiel with the blue eyes.

Castiel with the dark hair.

Castiel who understands him.

Castiel who was on that bus with him when it slammed into a brick wall, the driver drunk, the bus in flames.

There were six survivors out of the nineteen passengers on the bus.

He and Castiel just happened to share a room together in the burn unit after the crash.

It hurt.

God, did it hurt. Those bandages being ripped off, the screaming that would come from Dean as the medicine was applied to his skin and the new bandages were added. He could barely think he was in so much pain, day in and day out.

Until one day, there was a voice next to him.

“When I was twelve years old, I fell off my swing and I broke my left arm,” came a voice from behind the partition that was separating Dean from the bandaged man next to him. “Everyone at school wanted to sign my cast, they all thought it was the coolest thing they had ever seen. And up comes this kid, this kid that I had never even met before, and he draws a huge penis, right on the underside of my cast.” Dean lets out an involuntary laugh at that, screaming when the sudden jolt causes the doctor to rip the bandage too fast.

“Here’s something that not everyone knows about large penises and the underside of arm casts- it is very difficult to get them off. The typical answer is to just scribble it out, but before the arm was broken at the elbow, the penis was in a place where I’d be going in blind if I tried to scribble. Now you might be thinking that going in blind was my best bet to get this thing off of me, but that would risk taking off several of the signed names, and I damn well intended to keep them to show how cool I was after the cast was removed. Going in blind was simply not an option. Despite my miraculous injury and all the popularity that it brought to me, I was quite the lonely child, and really had no friends. So, when I asked for help with the penis removal, no one was too keen on giving me any assistance, especially because the kid who gave it to me was a whole grade ahead of us.

“In retrospect, I really should have asked my teacher for help. She would have laughed and covered in duct tape and I would have been on my way. But no, I had to take things into my own hands and do this all on my own.

“In my school, there were two boys’ bathrooms- one for the younger children and one for the older children. Evidently, the public school system thought that boys turned into basketball players at age eleven, raising the mirror to where I could barely see my own eyes, let alone get a good angle to scribble that penis off. I was also a bit on the short side, which really didn’t help my whole cool guy case I was pushing.

“My genius self decided that the only way to get that high was to climb onto the sink. We had that weird communal sink, the circle one in the middle of the room with a whole bunch of really shitty spouts and the bar around the bottom that you press to get the water to go. So, in all of my twelve year old glory, I hopped into that sink.

“What I didn’t account for was that the sink was going to be slippery. I also didn’t factor in that I was missing my main arm to be able to stop myself if I was going to fall into said sink.

“And that’s the story of how I ended up in the emergency room with a broken nose and a crudely drawn penis on my arm at 11:20am one Thursday afternoon,” the man finished.

And that was how Dean met Castiel.

After that morning tale, the partition between them was removed. They spent all of their days talking and listening to one another, and they spent all of their nights whispering hushed desires and watching bad cable.

The doctors changed bandages and the pain came in waves so high that Dean almost went into cardiac arrest. But no matter what happened, Castiel was right next to him, going on and on about the harrowing tale of how he was almost arrested in high school because he had tried to make a homemade pencil for his history test for good luck and the teacher thought it was a shiv.

“My mother always said I was a shit carpenter,” he commented at the end of that one.

And when Castiel’s time came, he never screamed. He held it in. Dean didn’t know how. Perhaps that’s why he always cried. Castiel never made a sound, but at the end of his bandage changing he always had tears in his eyes.

And so Dean would tell Castiel how to change the oil on a car, how to patch a hole in a tire, how to make a fantastic apple pie that everyone would swear on their life tasted just like what grandma pulled out of the oven on a holiday and fed with a grin on her face.

They both talked and listened, listened and talked.

They shared hopes, dreams, secrets, fears.

Especially fears.

“I’ll never find anyone,” Dean breathed one night. Castiel remained silent. “My face is so fucked up. I can’t bear to look in a mirror, so how will anyone ever be able to stand looking at me? Looking at me for the rest of my life? I’m a freak. I’m a freak and there’s nothing I can do about it.” Dean’s voice was thick and he had to raise a hand to wipe away a tear.

“Your eyes are greener than any leaf on any tree that I’ve ever seen. And I would know, Dean, I grew up right in front of a forest. You express so much through just a glance that I can’t imagine how powerful your words must be when you are truly passionate about something. Your entire being lights my life up. When you wake up in the morning it’s the highlight of my day because I can speak to you. Your face-” Dean flinched, but in the dark Castiel couldn’t see it. “-is the only face I’ve ever seen you with. It’s a beautiful face, Dean. It shows what you’ve been through and it tells a story that many others could never imagine having to tell. Everyone who meets you falls in love with you. And one day, you’ll fall in love back, and you’ll wonder why you were ever worried that something as silly as a few scars could ever hold you back in this life.”

That was the first time that Dean got that feeling in his chest. That feeling like he was going to explode just because Castiel was near. That feeling that his heart would stop beating if Castiel didn’t continue to speak.

That night, when Dean finally fell asleep, it was to the song of Castiel’s name.

After weeks upon weeks in the hospital, Castiel was released. His injuries were much less severe than Dean’s and he got to home early. Dean’s face and right arm were badly damaged and he needed to stay in the hospital for a longer period of time to go through physical therapy and to be monitored closely for any complications. His lungs were also significantly weaker than Castiel’s, and since he had no one to go home to that could take care of him, he had to remain in that damned hospital bed.

Castiel visited him every single day.

He would come in before work and say hello and eat his breakfast with Dean, and then after work he would spend his evenings in the room watching terrible TV shows and eating shitty hospital food.

Dean would always tell him to go home, to go out to see his other friends and to have fun. To which Castiel responded “What other friends? I have nowhere I would rather be than here with you.” Dean got used to it. Dean got comfortable.

And one evening, Castiel didn’t come. Dean waited up for him all night. When 2am rolled around, he could no longer keep his eyes open.

The next morning, he awoke to the smell of coffee and a familiar face. He threw his arms around Castiel’s neck, startling the other man.

“Never do that again!” Dean shouted, holding Castiel tightly. Castiel retuned the hug.

He never missed another evening.

Two weeks later, Dean was released from the hospital.

“Move in with me,” are the words that left Castiel’s lips when they reached his car in the parking lot. Dean accepted immediately.

After living together in the two bedroom apartment for four months, Dean finally realized that the second bedroom wasn’t supposed to be used. They kept Dean’s old bed as a spare.

And now, one year after the accident, Dean has that song stuck in his head once more. That song that only has one word and yet holds so much meaning to him. He sits in the restaurant with his head back, taking deep breath after deep breath.

_You can do this, Winchester. You’ve got this. You’re solid._

When the door to the restaurant opens, Dean’s head snaps up so fast he practically gets whiplash. He stands when he sees that it’s Castiel, gesturing him towards Dean and the table he had chosen just for this night. Castiel sits down across from him, shrugging off his coat.

“A work shirt _and_ a tie? I feel severely under dressed,” Castiel remarks. Dean laughs.

“You’re wearing a full suit, Cas,” he says.

“Yes, but the equivalent to you wearing more than a shirt with holes in it is a tux,” Castiel teases. Dean rolls his eyes.

The waiter comes, and they give their orders and menus to him.

The evening is full of playful teasing and terrible jokes. Castiel talks about a client issue he’s having at work, and even though Dean has no idea what he’s saying when he talks about his accounting job, he listens attentively and asks questions about anything that he doesn’t understand. Dean tells Castiel about a gorgeous old car that came into the shop today, a black 1967 Impala. He tells Castiel how much it reminds him of the old car that his father owned and how he was considering buying it, since the owner only wanted to bring in the shell for scrap.

Their food arrives and the two men eat, stealing bites of each other’s food. Dean almost stabs Castiel’s hand on instinct when he goes for his pasta, but managed to control himself. Barely.

The night is winding to a close.

Dean’s heart is beating a million miles a minute.

He has that song playing in his head at full blast.

_CasCasCasCasCasCasCasCasCasCasCasCasCasCasCasCasCas._

Dean pays the bill while Castiel grumbles about going dutch. Dean stands and helps Castiel into his jacket. They say goodnight to the host and step outside. Once they’ve walked a block, Dean moves a shaking hand to Castiel’s shoulder, stopping him on the street.

“Cas,” Dean says, going right along with the song.

“Dean,” Castiel grins back. Dean’s mouth twitches into a smile. He feels sick.

“You’re- you’re a wonderful man. The light of my life. Everything that you say makes me feel happy and everything that you do makes me want to be a better man. I don’t have a lot left in this world, but I have you. And I know that no matter what, I’ll have you.”

Dean gets down on one knee.

“I was just wondering if- if you’d let me have you forever?”

He pulls out the box that he’s had in his jacket for the last two months, revealing a golden wedding band to Castiel. Castiel bursts out laughing, wiping tears away from his eyes. He drops to his knees and pulls a box out of his own coat, opening it to reveal a silver ring inside, just like the one Dean wears for his father.

And how ridiculous they must look, two men on their knees in the middle of the sidewalk, laughing and crying and desperately placing rings onto fingers.

Dean leans forwards and presses his lips to Castiel’s, wrapping the man in a hug and burying his face into his neck.

The song is still playing in Dean’s head.

Now he knows that it will never leave.

Now he knows that he will never want it to.


End file.
